Jacob Gross v R
[2024] EWCA Crim 21
R v Jonathan Porter & Anor
14 December 2023
[2023] EWCA Crim 1485
Court of Appeal
Two men were convicted of money laundering from smuggled alcohol. They argued the money wasn't proven to be from the crime. The court said it didn't matter where the money *originally* came from; it was used to pay for the crime, making it "criminal money." Their appeal failed.
Key Facts
- •Jonathan Porter and Peter Stanley convicted of money laundering under section 328(1) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA).
- •Porter was the director of Europlus Trading Limited (ETL), used in a money laundering scheme involving smuggled alcohol.
- •Stanley acted as a cash courier.
- •The scheme involved smuggling alcohol into the UK, evading duty, and then using ETL to launder the proceeds.
- •The prosecution did not allege direct involvement in the smuggling, only in the laundering.
- •The key question was whether the cash delivered to ETL was "criminal property" under POCA.
Legal Principles
There are two ways to prove property is criminal property under POCA: (a) showing it derived from specific unlawful conduct; or (b) showing circumstances giving rise to an irresistible inference it only derived from crime.
Anwoir [2009] WLR 980, paragraph 21; Archbold 2021 Edition, paragraph 26-12
In money laundering, the underlying crime must be complete before the money laundering offence occurs.
R v GH [2015] UKSC 24, [2015] 1 WLR 2126, paragraphs 20 and 40
Criminal property under s.328 POCA means property already having that quality due to criminal conduct distinct from the money laundering actus reus. The money laundering offence is predicated on another offence yielding proceeds.
R v GH, following Montilla; Archbold 2021, 26-12
The prosecution does not need to prove the criminal complicity of a specific person involved in the predicate offence to show that the property is criminal.
Section 340(4)(a) POCA 2002
Cash paid for duty-evaded goods becomes criminal property upon handover to the courier, regardless of the immediate source of the cash.
Afolabi [2009] EWCA Crim 2829; Loizou [2005] EWCA Crim 1579
Outcomes
Applications for leave to appeal against convictions dismissed.
The court found sufficient evidence to support the convictions. The prosecution successfully argued that the cash, while potentially from various sources, represented the benefit of the prior criminal conduct of alcohol duty evasion. The judge's directions to the jury were clear and correct.
Ground 2 (a technical point on the indictment) dismissed as unarguable.
The inclusion of Porter and Howard's names in the indictment was considered surplusage, as the charge focused on money laundering, not their individual roles in the predicate offence. The case against Porter was clearly about his role in laundering funds for the benefit of the smugglers.